From The Washington Post:
A federal judge has sided with four publishers who sued an online archive over its unauthorized scanning of millions of copyrighted works and offering them for free to the public. Judge John G. Koeltl of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled [March 24] that the Internet Archive was producing “derivative” works that required permission of the copyright holder.The Archive strikes back:
“Libraries are more than the customer service departments for corporate database products,” Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle wrote in a blog post Friday. “For democracy to thrive at global scale, libraries must be able to sustain their historic role in society — owning, preserving, and lending books. This ruling is a blow for libraries, readers, and authors and we plan to appeal it.”A blog post at the Internet Archive has more. And if you want to support the Archive, here’s the link for donations.
comments: 2
I’m siding with the publishers, and thus the authors, too. Imagine devoting years to create a work of art and then having others pirate it, so that you don’t see a penny. That’s why we have Copyright laws: To ensure that authors get compensated for their works, encouraging them to write more. Win, win.
I’m sure that even libraries don’t cheat authors: They either buy the books themselves or receive book donations from someone who did.
I don’t know who you’re siding with, but by giving info on how to donate to the Archive, it sounds like it’s not the authors.
I haven’t read The Post’s article. I need a paid subscription for that. Hmmmm.
article. Without buying a subscription butdon’t see what‘s derivative about the scanned copies. I’m guessing that the Archive tried to argue that its copies were transformative and thus didn’t infringe the authors’ copyrights. I’m can’t be sure because the Post
I, too, write, and I wouldn’t want my work pirated either. But are you familiar with the Internet Archive? It’s not an illegal-downloads site; it’s a lending library (also with materials in the public domain that can be downloaded for keeps).
If you were to click on the Post link, you could read the article. It’s a "gift link” (silly term), via my subscription.
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